Morning Rave Work Out

Somebody pass me my glowsticks, because a new morning workout trend is sweeping the nation with early-morning rave parties. And by nation I mean England, and by sweeping I mean there's only one so far.



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Scientific Seven-Minutes Workout

Exercise science is a fine and intellectually fascinating thing. But sometimes you just want someone to lay out guidelines for how to put the newest fitness research into practice.

“There’s very good evidence” that high-intensity interval training provides “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time,” says Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Fla., and co-author of the new article.

Work by scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and other institutions shows, for instance, that even a few minutes of training at an intensity approaching your maximum capacity produces molecular changes within muscles comparable to those of several hours of running or bike riding.

Interval training, though, requires intervals; the extremely intense activity must be intermingled with brief periods of recovery. In the program outlined by Mr. Jordan and his colleagues, this recovery is provided in part by a 10-second rest between exercises. But even more, he says, it’s accomplished by alternating an exercise that emphasizes the large muscles in the upper body with those in the lower body. During the intermezzo, the unexercised muscles have a moment to, metaphorically, catch their breath, which makes the order of the exercises important.

The exercises should be performed in rapid succession, allowing 30 seconds for each, while, throughout, the intensity hovers at about an 8 on a discomfort scale of 1 to 10, Mr. Jordan says. Those seven minutes should be, in a word, unpleasant. The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done.

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Yoga and meditation may change your genetics instantly

Researchers may have a new clue as to what’s behind the feelings of well-being that come with activities like yoga or guided meditation. A new study shows that these forms of practiced relaxation have the potential to change which genes a person is expressing almost instantaneously. One yoga session is not going to alter your genetic structure and turn you into a superhuman, of course, but it could influence the function of genes associated with metabolism and immune system function in a hot second, which, really, is weird and surprising enough for our tastes.

Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center took multiple blood samples from a small group of test subjects who had little prior experience with relaxation practices. Comparing over 22,000 different genes at points when subjects were going about their normal day to when they were practicing relaxation, the team found that blood samples taken during relaxation indicated increased activity in genes that regulate energy metabolism, while gene pathways that regulate inflammation and stress at a cellular level were suppressed. That’s not concrete proof, but it does make one suspect that the benefits of meditation are more than just blowing off some steam and taking a moment to yourself.

While this isn’t yet proof that meditation can change gene expression — lots of further study will be needed to demonstrate that convincingly — it’s a pretty intriguing indicator that the physical benefits of just taking a step back and a couple of deep breaths could go right down to our DNA.

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Crazy Flexibility

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Exercise-Induced Orgasms are more common that you think

Women may not need a guy or any other direct stimulation to have an orgasm.

Herbenick and her colleagues used online surveys to gather their data, which included answers from 124 women who had experienced exercise-induced orgasms and 246 women who reported exercise-induced sexual pleasure. Most of the women, ages 18 to 63 and an average age of 30, were in a relationship or married and 69 percent said they were heterosexual.

Of the women who had orgasms during exercise, about 45 percent said their first experience was linked to abdominal exercises; 19 percent linked to biking/spinning; 9.3 percent linked to climbing poles or ropes; 7 percent reported a connection with weight lifting; 7 percent running; the rest of the experiences included various exercises, such as yoga, swimming, elliptical machines, aerobics and others.

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Want to slim your face? This might help

This is the Japanese Face Slimmer, a $50 piece of plastic you jam in your mouth to look like a lovedoll. You're supposed to wear it while reciting the vowel sounds of the alphabet three times a minute, twice a day.

Geekologie

Yoga on a Toilet

Don't have time to exercise? Try this unique yoga while you're in a toilet!

Toilet Yoga Movement